


the tidy designs of paradise

by crookedspoon



Series: Exchange Fics [32]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, M/M, POV Jason Todd, Undercover as Married, Unresolved Tension, idk if it's sexual or romantic in nature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-18 01:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19966375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: "Remind me again why I let you rope me into this," Jason hisses from behind his iced tea. The turnout is bigger than expected. Every single person within a five mile radius came to meet the new neighbors apparently. It's like they're a big circus attraction or something.





	the tidy designs of paradise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SmileAndASong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmileAndASong/gifts).



> Many thanks to LuthienLuinwe for the beta!

"Remind me again why I let you rope me into this," Jason hisses from behind his iced tea. The turnout is bigger than expected. Every single person within a five mile radius came to meet the new neighbors apparently. It's like they're a big circus attraction or something.

"Your great sense of justice compelled you to take this case," Dick suggests, swirling around the ice cubes in his own tea with a maccaroni—an eye-catching plastic straw substitute to show off how ecologically conscious they are.

"This case is bullshit and you know it," Jason growls. "A bunch of gay and lesbian folk move to this neighborhood, end up in financial trouble, and then either go missing or move away with crushed spirits. That's not a case; that's the economy."

"Maybe your wish to play house with me was so strong you couldn't pass up your chance."

"I swear I'm going to punch you."

"Not in front of the guests, honey," Dick admonishes playfully and touches Jason's forearm. Jason starts as though a jolt of electricity has gone through him. "We need to make a good first impression, and it shouldn't be one of domestic violence."

Jason grits his teeth. The trouble is that they _are_ the best for the job. Bruce is too recognizable, the brats—Spoiler and Black Bat included—are too young, and Batwoman is off God knows where chasing God knows what. And even if she'd agreed, who would partner up with her? Huntress? She'd sooner put an arrow in Kate than work with her. Or so Jason imagines. Who knows? Maybe the two would get along swimmingly, and woe betide anyone who stands in their way.

Too bad _he_ is not a woman. Or that none of Dick's former Titans contacts were available to take his place. Then he wouldn't have to be here with Dick, wearing these ridiculous clothes, and pretending to be friendly. Makes him feel caged, with his teeth filed off. 

"Look alive, Jason, and let's go mingle again."

"For the record, you owe me."

"What do I owe you?"

"Don't know yet, but you owe me."

"All right, fine, I owe you. Happy? Now put your game face on and be my presentable husband."

Dick grins with his whole face, bright like the early summer weather, and tugs him into the backyard. Jason stares at their connected fingers, fighting down the blush he feels rising to his cheeks. Right. Husbands. He can do this. 

Dick is warm and welcoming, the perfect host, shaking hands, introducing them (Jason wonders if he'll ever get used to hearing it: "I'm Dick, and this is my husband Jason."), and directing the guests to get refreshments and where to put the food they brought. The table they set by the back porch is filling with Tupperware containers and carafes of lemonade. 

It's a colorful gathering, if by colorful you mean white people in several shades of pastel and dark blue. At least some of the women, and a man in a pink polo shirt, liven up the uniformity with pops of yellow sundresses, red polka dots, and hot pink running shoes.

"This potato salad is heavenly. Where did you get it?" one of the women—Sharon, he believes—says as she sidles up to them. Her hair is in a loose chignon, she's wearing a pearl necklace and earrings, a sleeveless, navy dress with a wide, square collar, and bright red lipstick with matching nails, as if she were merely stopping by on her way to her actual dinner reservation.

"I made it," Jason replies tersely, trying to keep his death glare in check. It's not easy. The audacity to imply that he _bought_ it, as if he doesn’t know how to cook. He's not combing his hair and donning these ridiculous gold-rimmed spectacles—even the word _glasses_ is too pedestrian a term for them—or this even more ridiculous sweater vest because he wants to. He does it to 'fit in', and yet he's still treated like a dirty, uncultured street rat.

"Is that so?" Jason detects a hint of suspicion in her voice. "Better not let Margaret get a taste of it then. She'll be after your recipe in no time." She leans closer as if to confide in him. "She's very proud of her own potato salad, you see. ‘The best in the neighbourhood,’ she says. Personally, I think Tom's is better—you know, Clayton. He's over there by the rose bushes—there's just something about the vinegar he uses."

"Vinegar. Right."

While she regales him with more tales about the neighborhood and its inhabitants, Jason uses the information she provides him with to draw a mental map of allegiances and hostilities. It's not unlike Gotham's criminal underbelly in that way, except with fewer guns and more PTA meetings, he presumes. 

Across from him, Dick is chatting with the men about their jobs, their children, and the ball games of the season. Jason tries not to look, but his eyes keep wandering to Dick, drawn to him like a magnet. Or more precisely, to every part of his features that look so unlike Dick that they stand out to Jason. It's like he has to check every so often if it's still Dick over there. A fleeting glance may suggest otherwise.

The sharper contours of Dick’s jawline and the slant of his eyes combined with the pale rose color of his lips give him a more vulpine appearance. Cunning and knowledgeable of things you did not want to divulge. The makeup provides him with a more even skin tone and covers up the bags underneath his eyes that usually make him look exhausted, even when he's trying to beam at you. He appears fresher now, less stretched thin.

And yet there are blemishes his makeup can't cover up, like the crook in his nose where it never healed properly after having been broken too many times in too close succession. At least one of those breaks must have been from Jason's own fist, and Jason still feels smug about it. There's something about marring that perfect face irreparably that gives him a deep-seated sense of satisfaction. 

Or the raised lines of Dick’s scars, usually pink slashes on tan skin, now indistinguishable in color from the rest of it. One of them nicks Dick's lips and breaks up the full curve of his lower lip. It might have been explained away as a shaving accident had his lip liner not evened out the recognizable mark. (Dick had been puttering around in the bathroom all morning, leaving Jason to handle all the preparations for their potluck. Cooking potatoes, chopping up parsley, fluffing up pillows that no one would see unless they decided to give a tour of the house.

"How long is the diva going to occupy the bathroom?" Jason had asked when he found himself straightening a picture frame for the third time in five minutes.

"Getting this nude look right is harder than you might think," Dick had called from the bathroom. Their shared bathroom. The door was not closed, but all the angles gave Jason was a look at the fogged up shower cubicle and Dick's terryclothed elbow "I don't know how Donna does it. Do you need the bathroom? You can just come in, you know. Or use the other one down the hallway."

"That's the guest bathroom. And nude is easy. Just strip off your clothes and voilà, you're on. Pretty sure a lot of people would appreciate that."

"Nude makeup, Jason. I'm not sure that you, as my husband, ought to be encouraging me to go outside naked."

Jason shrugged, although Dick couldn't see it. "Why not? Maybe I enjoy the look of envy on their faces because _they're_ not married to you."

"So I'm the trophy wife?"

"If trophy wife means all you have to do is look good and not lift a finger," Jason said and leaned against the doorframe, making his impatience felt. "Come on, you're not going to a drag race. There's no way it can take this long to get ready. I need a hand with the tables."

"Okay, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming. Hold your horses. We have plenty of time. No one's going to arrive within the next couple of hours. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were _eager_ to meet our new neighbors."

"Eager to get this over with, maybe." Jason slowly toed open the door. Only to remember that looking down was a mistake as the sight of _loafers_ assaulted his visual sensibilities. He doesn't feel like himself if he's not wearing steel-toed combat boots.

"Aww, don't you enjoy getting to spend time with me, Little Wing?" Dick said with a light voice, eyes crinkling at him in the mirror. His blue bathrobe was a mere nod toward modesty, revealing more chest than it hid.

"I'd rather perform oral surgery on a grizzly without general _or_ local anesthesia."

Dick huffed a quiet laugh. "Sounds like a beary fun time."

"The beary best." Jason took a step inside the bathroom, to get a better angle at Dick's face in the mirror. "You look..."

Dick turned around, hair clips holding his bangs out of his eyes. "Different?"

He was going to say handsome, but now he wouldn't be caught dead _thinking_ it. "Yeah, slightly."

"Good, because I was going for slightly different." Dick smiled. "So do you, by the way."

Jason was affronted. "I look like a nerd."

He had not been wearing the sweater vest then, but one of the atrocious checkered shirts Dick had laid out for him. Jason should have known that when Dick said he had him covered, that he needn't pack his own clothes, that something eye-gouging like this would be in his future. Naturally, Jason had brought a duffel bag just in case, stashed in the garage with his motorcycle, but he hadn't been particularly keen on getting it out in the morning. Might as well wear that ugly thing, dirty it up while doing chores, and have an excuse never to wear it again. He can tolerate that much. 

Where Jason had drawn the line was the bowtie that Dick had also laid out. He'd sooner strangle him with it than wear it. What does Dick take him for? Some kind of hipster?

"Jason, you _are_ a nerd."

"I'm the furthest thing from a nerd—"

"'Let me compare thee to a bright summer's day,'" Dick intoned grandly.

"It's just 'summer's day.' You're fucking up the pentameter, jackass."

"Prithee, milord, what art thou if not a nerd?" Dick pranced past him with a grin, bathrobe spreading out like a cape.

"Annoyed out of my fucking mind is what I am."

"Anything I can do to help?" The sultry smile Dick threw at him over his shoulder could not have been more indecent if he were naked.

As soon as he thought it, Jason wondered if Dick could read his mind or if he was trying his patience because he had nothing else to do. A thick bead of sweat was rolling down Jason's face as he watched Dick's bathrobe slide down his arms, baring the broad span of his shoulders and the scarred slope of his back to view. 

"You wanted nude."

Jason's hands curled into fists. He was going to punch Dick before the day was out; he could feel it in his bones.

The bathrobe dropped to the floor. Jason caught a glimpse of Dick's exceptionally well-formed backside before it vanished inside the walk-in closet. A moment later, shirts and khakis went flying in an arc toward the bed.

"Are you just gonna stand there and watch, or are you going to help me choose?"

"I'm peeling potatoes until you're done there." Jason walked back into the kitchen, the heat beneath his skin definitely the result of his cooking.)

"He's very handsome."

Jason's head whips around to the person who just spoke. Pale-faced, with red, receding hair and a close-cropped beard, the man is younger than most of the people Jason's seen swarming the place. He's wearing tan khakis and a shirt similar to the one Jason had worn this morning. Complete with bow tie.

"Your husband. He's very handsome."

"Don't I know that," Jason mutters under his breath. It's anything anyone ever mentions about Dick, if they're not going on about how _perfect_ he is in any other aspect of his life. What rankles Jason is that they're right. "He's perfect."

"You're not so bad yourself."

Jason scoffs. "Try living in his shadow for a bit."

"I get it," the man says. "My husband is the same. A radiant piece of sunshine. Draws every eye. That's him over there, talking to Karl. You probably don't know all our names yet. Mine's Alan." He extends his hand. "It's nice to not be the only gay couple in the neighborhood anymore. There was a lesbian couple that lived down the street not a few months back but they had to move out. Financial straits."

"Straits, heh." Jason's ears perk up. Alan seems to be just the kind of person he's looking for. Or rather, the kind of person who might give him the kind of intel he's looking for.

Alan smiles lopsidedly. "Pun not intended."

"Oh good, Alan, I was hoping to find you here." A woman in a cream coloured costume, a small matching purse dangling from the crook of her arm, a busy air about her like the cloud of her perfume, walks up to them. "Our Jeremy needs help with his math homework, and I was hoping you could have Nathan over to look through it with him."

"I'll ask him. He has a pretty full schedule, you know."

"Of course," the woman says, articulating with her hands. "My goodness. How rude of me, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm Margaret, so delighted to meet the new addition to the LGBT community in our midst."

"You've got a real queer community here then?" Jason asks, intrigued. The sooner they can get this case over, the better. He's not sure how long he can tolerate these tedious lines of conversation.

"She's exaggerating; it's just me and my husband. But we are happy to have you and make it one."

"You guys have children?" Dick asks, startling Jason as he materializes at his side and changes the topic to something much less important. Jason wants to remind him they're not actually here to make friends with these people, but he's busy trying not to tense up when Dick leans his head against his shoulder. His arms wraps comfortably around Jason's back, as if they're used to doing this all the time. Too bad Jason didn't get the memo because his spine is stiff as a rod and no amount of breathing exercises is going to relax him any time soon. 

"Yes, two boys. They're at baseball practice now."

"They're the pride of the neighborhood, the little Black angels." She turns to them. "Do you have children?"

"Oh no," Dick laughs, covering Jason's hand with his own and threading their fingers together. "We're not ready for that level of commitment yet. Even getting my hubby here to agree to marry me took some convincing. Isn't that right, honey? Can't imagine what the conversation about children would be like."

Jason glares at him. The smile he receives in return is pure sugary sweetness and makes him diabetic just looking at it. He jumps again when Dick brings Jason's knuckles to his lips and presses a quick kiss to his wedding ring—a simple gold band; nothing Jason would choose were he actually married. It's an effort not to yank his hand away. Instead, he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his other hand. To no avail. They slip down again.

"We can have the conversation right here if you want to," Jason challenges. "Because if I'm the one tasked with the whole child-rearing part—which, going by the way you skillfully shirk your household duties, I would be—I'm gonna have to vote no."

Dick's sweet smile slips into sheepishness. "You got me there." Then his gaze softens. "You would make a great father, though."

Jason blushes, made worse by the fact that a crowd has gathered around them, no doubt drawn in by the topic of children.

"Are you the wife in your relationship?" Margaret asks, stabbing her maccaroni around in her drink.

Alan coughs politely, as if to signal that this is not at all a polite question to ask.

Jason feels Dick's hand tighten on his shoulder, as if to stop him from making a scene. Well, how's this for a scene? Jason draws himself up and puffs out his chest. "So what if I am? You're a wife too, aren't you?"

"Does that mean you also take the female role in bed?"

"Margaret!" someone says, scandalized. "You don't ask that."

"I'm curious!"

"That's private, lady." Jason is incredulous and seething. A vein in his neck is throbbing so hard it must be about to pop. He sort of hopes it does; he wants to see these people screaming and running away from the bloodbath they created by pissing him off too much.

"We don't do that," Dick says, stepping between them. "I mean, we do, but not like that."

His hand on Jason's forearm is intimate and warm, his lips on Jason's cheek even more so—though nowhere near as hot as Jason's face. "Play nice," Dick whispers, and the brush of his lips against the shell of his ear sends a shiver through Jason. "We're not here to pick a fight." Aloud, he says, "We like to keep things egalitarian between us."

"Except where the dishes are concerned," Jason says snidely, fighting down his unholy blush.

"You won't ever let me live that down, huh?" Dick smiles at him through his lashes.

Jason wants to continue his argument, but his brain is busy screaming like a teenage fangirl, the way it always does when Dick looks at him like this. He has learned to ignore it, mostly, but he's really put to the test today.

"What do you mean, 'not like that'?" Margaret asks, like a dog with a bone. "How do you do it, then?"

"I wasn't prepared to be grilled on our marital secrets so soon," Dick says with a charming laugh that Jason hates him for. "But just between you and me, we have a lot of tools at our disposal that go a long way." Here, he wiggles his fingers and winks. Jason is damn near apoplectic. "We're pretty vanilla that way. But we've got this amazing mojito-flavored lube that you all have to try. I simply cannot recommend it enough."

Jason stands there open-mouthed for a full heartbeat. Even Alan's face has taken on the same ruddy colour of his hair.

"Excuse us for a moment," Jason says finally and drags Dick along with him. "I need to have another chat with my husband about what's private and what's not."

"He's just shy," Dick stage-whispers to the crowd they leave behind. 

They huddle in the corner of the porch, out of earshot but still able to keep an eye on their guests.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Jason demands.

"What do you mean? I'm giving them what they want to make them warm up to us. It's not like I'm actually sharing private information."

"It's exactly what they think you're doing. This isn't some kind of frat party where you score points with your pals by laying out your last sexual exploit in excruciating detail!"

Dick leans closer, running his hands up Jason's chest. "Just be glad I didn't tell them how much I love it when you eat out my—"

"I don't wanna hear it," Jason cuts him off. If Dick continues talking, he's going to have a problem on his hands. Or rather, in his khakis. One that he doesn't want to have to explain. 

Jason closes his eyes and exhales slowly, suppressing the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Mojito-flavored lube, huh?" he asks when he opens them again.

"I actually own that. Wanna try it?"

By now, his flaring blush must be seriously drying out his skin. Jason will need to remember to use extra moisturizer later. The skincare regimen that Dick assigned him to better pass among these yuppies is brutal.

"No, thanks. I'll just have flashbacks of today."

Mostly of Dick in his bathrobe—or out of it rather, of Dick proudly announcing how they like their sex, or of Dick grinning at him in a way that suggests he might demonstrate exactly how dexterous his fingers are any second now.

"I'm sure there are some nice images of today you can flash back to," Dick says, deftly avoiding eye contact as he straightens Jason's tie.

Jason shakes his head. "You're a horrible flirt, Dick Grayson."

"It's Grayson-Todd now, remember?" Dick smiles at him through his lashes.

"I'm gonna file for divorce if you don't stop that."

"Stop what?" Dick asks, but thankfully drops his act. "Isn't this how married couples are supposed to act? Aren't we supposed to be into each other?"

"No one wants to see that."

"If I agree to tone it down, are you gonna manage to keep playing along?"

"Only if you promise never to mention our imaginary sex life again."

"Okay, I promise." Dick grins, hand on his heart, then casts a glance over his shoulder. "We need to make them think we made up."

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"Come closer and I'll tell you."

Jason is already tilting down to better listen to Dick's suggestion when he realizes his mistake. So much for toning it down.

Dick cups Jason's cheek and then his mouth covers Jason's own. His eyes widen. Dick is kissing him. It's nothing more than a soft press of lips, but Dick is kissing him.

Jason's breath cuts off and his heartbeat doubles.

He wasn't prepared for this. He should have been, after all the banter and the flirting, but he wasn't. He wouldn't ever be prepared when it came to Dick.

"That should do it," Dick says softly as he draws back. He's fiddling with the collar of Jason's sweater vest and smoothing down the front. Then he laughs. "You look like I just murdered your favorite puppy. It can't have been that bad."

Jason shakes his head, throat so tight he doubts he'll be able to make a sound for the rest of the afternoon.

Dick boops his nose with a fond smile. "Let's go back."

Jason nods, feeling mute and stupid and trying not to stare at Dick's lips. He hates that Dick is wearing makeup. Makes it harder to tell if he's blushing, too.

Jason directs his gaze upward and hopes to God this case turns out to be a breeze. He's not sure how much more of this he can take.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Vowel Movements" by Daryl Hine.


End file.
